Letters From Columbia: Breaking Down BioShock Infinite

This early scene from a BioShock Infinite demo doesn't actually appear in the game. At least, not quite. Screenshot: Irrational Games

Do people still have conversations around the water cooler anymore? If so, BioShock Infinite is sure to be a hot topic of discussion wherever nerds still coalesce around beverage dispensers.

If you were at all familiar with Ken Levine and Irrational Games’ 2007 magnum opus BioShock, with its enveloping, fascinating world and its masterfully written characters, you should have expected that BioShock Infinite, the sequel nearly six years in the making, would have delivered another such experience. Days and weeks after finishing it, we can’t stop thinking about it. With so many angles to explore, we decided to have a conversation about what we took away from Infinite. I am joined by Wired fellow Jensen Toperzer and contributor John Mix Meyer. Here’s our first round of letters, with at least one more to follow.

So let’s get this out of the way first, as if there were any doubt: Yes, I loved BioShock Infinite. Ken Levine gets it: I don’t get the “frustrated movie director” vibe from him at all; he loves and wants to make videogames specifically. Just as with the original BioShock, Infinite‘s story is not straining against the confines of the videogame medium; it is entirely born from it. BioShock must be a videogame just as Watchmen must be a comic book, there is no separating the medium and the message (cf: Watchmen the movie).

Everyone who’s played BioShock remembers the big Manchurian-candidate twist, but what seems to be less remembered is the fact that it was all a wry commentary on videogames themselves: A voice in our ear told us what to do, and we complied. We didn’t just watch a slave carry out orders, we participated without a second thought. We remember the twist not just because it was a surprise gotcha ending but because it was actually attempting to lead the player to a real-life epiphany, it actually had a point, and when was the last time a videogame tried to do that?

So what I’m saying is I needed more out of BioShock Infinite than just a Shyamalanic twist ending. I wanted that commentary again even if I was expecting it this time, even if my encounter with it was going to be more one of appreciation than epiphany. As it turns out, I got it in the first two minutes of gameplay. As the Lutece “siblings” row you to the lighthouse, they practically ignore you, talking about you in the third person and pointing out that it wouldn’t be worth asking you to help row the boat because “he doesn’t row.” Not that he (Booker/you) won’t, but that he doesn’t. Later we understand this as part of the game’s infinite-universes mythology, in which there are variables but also constants: Even amongst the infinite possible universes, some things never change, and in none of what I presume were many different attempts by the Luteces to introduce Booker into Columbia does Booker ever pick up the oars and row.

Every videogame is a set of infinite worlds much like the one Infinite proposes, a possibility space in which there are both constants and variables. There’s an infinite number of ways that any game can be played through, but certain things will always be the same. He doesn’t row. There is no “row” button.

But then it gets even better, even trickier, almost daring you to defy it, knowing that you can’t. One of the things that bugged me about the critical scene in BioShock, in which Ryan orders Jack to bash his brains out with a golf club, was that it all happened automatically, as a cut scene. The player didn’t control it. This seemed imperfect to me. So I found it quite amusing when the boat reached the lighthouse pier, the point at which the player is supposed to take control, turn and press X to climb the ladder. If you hesitate, you hear Robert say “He’s not moving,” and Rosalind say “Don’t worry — he will.”

And of course you do. Everyone does. If you have gotten to this point in the game — mere minutes after going through the trouble of buying it, of putting it in your console, of starting it up, of watching the enigmatic introduction — are you really going to not take the first step and go up the ladder? Of course you will. There is no universe in which you do not. So where did your free will go?

I actually like the 2003 game Eternal Darkness a lot, more than most people. It has a ladder as well: One of the first things you do is play as the character who soon becomes the main antagonist, and there’s a ladder in front of him that will lead him down into the tomb where the main events of the game — horrors that will span millennia — are kicked into motion. And when you look at the ladder, you see this:

“Should Pious climb down the ladder? Yes: A; No: B”

This seemingly innocuous dialog box is actually a brilliant little trick. There’s no gameplay reason why anyone would need to press “B” at this moment; there’s nothing else in the room and nothing else to do but climb down the ladder. A more recent videogame would simply have a screen overlay that reads “A: Climb Ladder.” But here Eternal Darkness uses a gameplay mechanic to make a point: Pious, you realize a little later, should not climb down the ladder, should not set these events into motion. Written somewhat like a text adventure, the game is actually breaking the fourth wall to address you the player directly and asking your opinion: Should he do this? Is this a good idea? And by assenting, you’re implicated in everything that follows.

Having set up this little bit of foreshadowing in the opening moments of Infinite, they revisit it in Infinite‘s ending scene in the most heartbreaking way. I had a feeling that “give us the girl and wipe away the debt” wasn’t going to mean what we thought it did; I did not guess beforehand that it would refer to Booker selling his infant daughter. And of course, the game wants us to act it out, to walk to the crib, pick her up and walk her over to Robert Lutece. And we hesitate, because who wouldn’t? Surely there’s a way out of this mess without having to sell a baby. But again, the game responds to us — like the lighthouse scene, the game is speaking to the player as much as it is speaking to Booker — and if you spend a moment’s hesitation here, Elizabeth says (I am paraphrasing) “It doesn’t matter how long you wait. You do not leave this room without handing over the baby.”

And no, we don’t. How could we? After that brutal final boss fight, with so many more unresolved questions even at that moment, who would have the fortitude to shut the game off at that moment and walk away? So of course we hand over the baby. We’re in too deep. We had no choice. Press X to sell baby, press X to ruin everything.

Anyway, that was what I really wanted to write down. What impression has BioShock Infinite left on you?

Chris

Come to think of it, neither did this. Screenshot: Irrational Games

Hello Chris, Mix;

At the risk of spoiling a completely different series for everyone, “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” That was my very first thought upon opening that door and seeing infinite lighthouses spiraling into the sky, fractal-like, and that was the moment at which I said yes, excellent; and it is good. A lot of people had problems with the ending of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower for many of the same reasons that people seem to have problems with BioShock: Infinite: these ideas of infinite looping, of time travel and “other worlds than these” (to keep quoting King) are difficult to swallow, difficult to parse, and difficult to reconcile (and King’s work wasn’t helped by having some rather weak links in the later books). But enough comparison, let’s speak of the work at hand.

What I liked most about Infinite’s twist is that while it asks similar questions of player agency to what the first BioShock did, it also expands upon those ideas. In the scene where you meander between the dark towers—I mean, lighthouses—you can, at one point, see other Bookers and Elizabeths off in the distance, mirroring your actions… or sometimes taking different actions. The nearest pair to you has opposite choices to you. If you chose the bird pendant for Elizabeth, the mirror will wear the cage. If you chose to wait at the train station and get yourself stabbed, your mirror has no wound, no bandaged hand. Further in the distance, the other Elizabeths and Bookers move differently; for some, she’s a little ahead, others, a little behind. One pair runs as though being chased by something dire; another waits for a time before moving. And yet, each one of them inevitably reaches the door. The paths for you along the docks even fork, and yet you still reach the door.

This mirrors the way that while each of us will play the game differently, we’re all still playing the same game. This was driven home for me by, of all things, a rather hilarious problem with the cloud save system that Infinite uses. I’ve shared my Steam account with my younger brother since I was fifteen; sharing your toys with your siblings is generally considered good form. Imagine my surprise when, a day after I started playing, I loaded up the game to find myself two chapters ahead with a completely different weapon loadout, vigour combination, and player choices made. Booker’s hand was un-bandaged because my brother had run out of patience and shot the people at the train station unprovoked. Elizabeth still wore the bird, but I was now carrying a machine gun/pistol combo instead of my favored sniper rifle/shotgun loadout. But even though my brother had made different choices, we’d still gone through the same events, we’d still gotten to the same place in the end. He’s playing the game now that I’ve beaten it, and I’m sure that at five in the morning I’m going to get a confused phone call about time shenanigans, just like how I immediately called my friends to ask them what the heck I’d just played.

And yet this is a funny message to send in a game that’s also about what can change a man’s nature. There are still huge differences between the parallel worlds. The entire universe hangs on one, single event: a baptism. In one universe, Booker refuses, flees, and never returns. In another, he comes back, he enters the water, and he is reborn a different man: the madman Comstock. One man’s a sinner tormented by his past; the other still sins but feels absolved of his crimes. It’d be difficult to argue that either one is a good man, but it’s easy to see which one at least tries to wipe away his debt, and which one would rather watch the world burn. Or is that so funny? Even then, in the end, Booker and Comstock still end up at the same place. They still end up at the river, their daughter still puts them beneath the water, and the city in the sky both did and did not exist. Schrodinger’s Cat will always be a cat. And the man in black will flee across the desert, and the gunslinger will follow.

Maybe I’m getting too poetic here. I dunno, Mix, your thoughts?

– J

Hi Jensen and Chris!

I think both of you are right on the money. This kind of ending has been done before: Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Shutter Island did almost the same thing. So did The Dark Tower, as Jensen pointed out. But that isn’t giving enough credit to Infinite. Within the context of a videogame, Infinite’s ultimate reveal is given more weight because it’s commenting on your experience as an active participant rather than a passive observer.

You could make comparisons all day long when discussing BioShock Infinite. For example, there’s the way Ken Levine constantly uses symmetrical designs to draw your attention to a center focal point, much like Stanley Kubrick often did in his iconic films. Then there’s the floating city of Columbia and how it’s clearly inspired by the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

More than anything else, though, BioShock Infinite constantly reminded me of There Will Be Blood. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, The Master), the film uses the story of a ruthless, early-20th century oilman to spin a broader narrative on the conflict between capitalistic industry and religious extremism.

When Ken Levine tweeted that he had watched There Will Be Blood during the making of Infinite, I was not surprised. But where Infinite differs is that it portrays the marriage between these two concepts. Walking through the gates of Columbia in those opening moments, you’re greeted by enormous statues of the founding fathers, towering and bathed in heavenly light. Continuing on, you find citizens praying to these statues, uttering “Father Jefferson” and “Father Washington” to themselves. There are numerous examples just like this throughout the entire game.

BioShock Infinite is perhaps more obvious in its themes than the film it takes partial inspiration from but it doesn’t really matter. What P.T. Anderson did with There Will Be Blood and what Levine has done with BioShock Infinite is encapsulate centuries of human existence and struggle.

Columbia is beautiful, yes, and a staggering work of design much like Rapture before it. But there is history here. Infinite isn’t an indictment of religion, it’s a character study. Our character. Humanity’s character. Would Columbia have worked with a different man in charge or is the idea inherently flawed? There is no answer for that.

And yet I’m not sure if it’s something to be concerned with. Before there was industry or even a concept of American exceptionalism, before there were countries or kingdoms, echoing far back to the beginning of humanity’s existence, there was religious worship. I think that’s what BioShock Infinite is really getting at in the end: That as long as mankind exists, so will religion.